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Poetry by Evan Byington

Anthology Material

. Blood drips aimlessly from the gash in my skull.
. Seeping slowly, in a sluggish attempt to meet the tufts of polypropylene.
. Moments ago fighting, racing through my venae cavae
. In an ever present demand to be reoxygenated, to repeat the constant cycle.
. Sadly, the cycle interrupted with the crashing force of gravity.

. The corner of the table sits still, crimson droplets splatter its surface.
. It drips slowly into the carpet.
. [God, that is going to cost a fortune to remove.]
. Another liquid melds with the coarse fibers,
. My mouth is agape and drool leaks from the corner.
. A blackness settles slowly into the edges of my vision.
. Steadily pulsing, closing inwards.
. In the distance a faint voice calls out, or was it a scream?
. I’m past the point of caring.

. A shadow looms over, too late, the muscles have grown rigid.
.She yells something at my face, and I’m oblivious to what she is trying to tell me.
. […I think a steam cleaner is about forty dollars for a day…]
. “What going on? What have you done? Oh my god, he’s gone?”
. Something like that, I can’t be sure. The sound, muffled and distant.
.They come in, two men clad in white, and jam their cold hands beneath me.
.They raise me onto a board and place a white cloth over me.
.Before the white becomes all encompassing, my head falls to the side.
. I see the carmine Pollock I left in the carpet in its entirety for the first time.
. Fuck, that is never coming out.

. I feel it in my bones
. she said, trembling violently under the crisp night air.
. Her heart beat [q u i c k ening] against my chest
. Slowing slowly, more ragged.
. She nuzzles closer, desperate for the two things I am unable to provide;
. Warmth and love.
.
. She attempts to blink back tears knowing they will freeze in mere moments
. obscuring what little there is left to see in our immediate vicinity.
.
. With her body slumped against me
. It feels like I am trapped in a grocery store freezer
. And we are two packages of meat waiting to expire.
.
. I try to comfort her, but, to be honest, prospects are looking bleak.
. I give her a quick squeeze and sigh, exhaling a swath of frosted regret.

. The subzero temperatures stab viciously as I wriggle my toes to stave off frostbite.
. The movement challenged by the ice-induced rigor.
. She looks up at me and tells me that she loves me.
. I mumble a response, vague, yet comforting and pray she believes it.
. After all, if I can’t give her hope in our last moments
. then I guess I’ve completely failed her.
.
. Her small frame stopped moving,
. the gentle heaving of the ocean turned to a placid lake.
.
. A small tear forms in the corner of my eye,
. not from the pain of loss,
. but the guilt from my lack of pain.
.
.
. Breaths get shallower, the corners of my vision fade.
. I succumb to the elements.

Claws slowly clenching,
Deeper and deeper into the spinal chord
A choking gasp as a lung is punctured and the pitiful sack collapses
Like the thoughts and prayers of this wretched host
Ruptured and bleeding, slowly suffocating
Coiling the tail around the throat
Feeling the last beats of life drift aimlessly,
erratically from this corpse
A blinding flash of pain, a metallic taste left bitter on the tongue
Resurrection for mere moments,
Delaying the inevitable.
The crimson tide spewing from the gaping wound in this beings back
Torn remnants of a shirt dangling loosely
“Its wife won’t be able to mend this hole.”
A sputter, shock, sputter shock, limbs spasm, mind breaks.
Empty, empty, empty.
A glaze over the moist sacks of vitriolic fluid in its skull,
Partially residual effects of the tears,
Predominately from the last vestiges of life being squeezed from its soul.
A flicker, a slow faint rhythmic thumping, lifeless eyes, staring.
Air forced in, forced out.
Tears, not of its own creation,
Welling up inside these four vacant walls.
A sweet scent emanating nearby, but not enough to arouse this husk.
“I’m sorry there is nothing we can do. Its gone won’t be coming back.”
Giving up, the only option to stop the misery evoked by its presence.
A steady beeping hammering from the sterile machine next to form swathed in white.
Withdrawal as the beeping eeeks out and holds the serene note
And the mending lungs stop receiving air and the withered heart stops its limp song.

. My will silently slips from my grasp.
.I watch my intentions violently shatter on the floor in a cacophony of panic.
. Left still, emotions slowly drain from my torso as I fade into mental oblivion.
.This nothingness slowly cascades through my body into my arms and thighs,
. I feel vacant, dreary, as I sit in numbing vacancy.

. Blank, expressionless I stare at moments in time through the penumbra of thought.
. They disperse as quickly as they come. I watch, void of any care.
. A dissonance seeps across the fractured air around me.

. SUDDENLY,
. A sharp rasp in the farthest reaches of my mind,

. Opening a welling of something from deep within.
. As the momentary paralysis fades, I’m left with the burning sensation of loneliness.
. Sapping my soul from my veins, I lay wishing for the longing to pass.